


Just the Fax, Ma'am

by Chash



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 22:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11999088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: Bellamy would not have expected his favorite work relationship to start with someone trying to fax paperwork to his landline, but somehow, here he is, involved some sort of bizarre, retro, fax-based flirtation with one of the new doctors.





	Just the Fax, Ma'am

It's the fourth call that tips Bellamy over from _annoyed_ to _actively homicidal_. He glances at the display, makes sure it's the same fucking number, and picks up and puts down the receiver without listening. It's not a big deal to call the wrong number when you're faxing, but this person has done it _four times_ now, and he's on edge, waiting for the next call which will just beep at him and disconnect.

"You know, if you're angry, you should eat," Pike calls. He's across the hall from Bellamy, but their doors are open, so he can certainly hear at least some of what's going on.

"I'm not angry about my blood sugar, I'm angry because someone is trying to fax something to my phone."

"Ah," says Pike. "They'll figure it out."

"Yeah, that's what I thought the first time. And the second. And the--" The phone starts ringing again, and he groans. It's an internal call, _Orthopedic Fax_ and the last five digits of the number on the display. They very well might actually be trying to fax him, and just misread his number versus his fax. It's totally understandable.

It's just that, after _five fucking times_ , he would be trying to figure out why it wasn't working, not sending yet another failed text to the same number. At some point, they're going to give up, right?

He jots down the number, hangs up the call, and grabs a blank piece of paper. He scrawls a quick note-- _FYI, 5-1101 is a phone. If you're trying to fax patient services, try 5-1108. Otherwise, check whatever number you're going for and try again. Good luck!_ \--and sends it over to the orthopedic number.

Hopefully, this will resolve the issue, he'll get whatever documents he may or may not need, and his phone will stop ringing. Most of the calls he gets are from stressed-out patients who want to know why their bills are so high and how they can get insurance, and while he's happy to help them out as best he can, the conversations tend to be fairly stressful. Every time the phone rings, he jumps, and he doesn't appreciate this unknown orthopedic person making him go through that. 

The confirmation for his fax comes through, verifying that, unlike whoever's trying to send him stuff right now, _he_ knows what he's doing.

"If they call again I'm going to go over and murder someone," he tells Pike, and his boss just rolls his eyes.

"If you're hungry, try a Snickers."

"You're like a walking cliche, you know that? You're actually quoting candy commercials now. If you call me sport, I'm leaving."

"Sure thing, champ," says Pike.

He has to smile. "Thanks, Dad."

The fax machine splutters into life, and Bellamy waits until all the pages have come in before he checks it. It's a request to have a patient's copay forgiven, pretty standard stuff, but the usual cover sheet has been replaced with a handwritten note: _Thanks for the help. Who even uses faxes anymore, honestly?_

He checks the name on the form--Clarke Griffin, whom he saw on the intake list last week--and figures that explains it. It's not as if he ever thought he'd be regularly using a fax machine either. It's upsetting that he has to use them as much as he does. She (guessing from the handwriting) is an MD, and he's kind of amazed she got through med school _and_ residency without getting better with them, but these things happen.

He can't say exactly what compels him to send another fax back. Pike went to the bathroom, so there's no one around to see what he's doing and judge him, at least.

He finds an ad he got a few days ago, because there is some poor robot in the world whose job it is still to send spam mail out via fax, and writes _You have this to look forward to, get pumped_ on the top. Hopefully it'll give her a smile. She's new and she's already correctly filing paperwork for patients who can't afford their bills, so he's a little less pissed about the whole misdial thing.

Or maybe he's growing as a person.

"Did it work?" Pike asks, when he gets back from the bathroom. "No more calls?"

"Nothing yet," he says. "I think it worked."

*

Bellamy's feelings on faxing are roughly the same as Clarke Griffin's: he did not expect that faxes would ever be a part of his every day life, and he's mildly annoyed that they are. But in keeping with the general antiquated and sadistic practices of United-States healthcare, the hospital _likes_ faxes. He even sort of understands why, honestly. Audits are a nightmare, and faxes have a pretty decent paper trail. They're not the worst way to do business when you're worried about the government showing up and demanding records.

Still, if he had his way, everything would just be scanned and emailed. It's technically more steps, but it's a better paper trail, and he could get rid of the fucking fax machine, which makes him jump every time it makes a sound.

It's possible Bellamy spends a lot of time startling at interactions with his own office supplies. He thinks it's justified.

It's also part of why he's been leading his own quiet, one-man rebellion against the fax machine. Most people who send him things are just as fax-opposed as he is, so he doesn't have any trouble convincing them to switch over to scanning and emailing. It has the physical signature, it has the information, it's _just as good_ , if not better. It's completely reasonable, and he knows it's right.

So it makes no sense at all that he actively avoids doing it with Clarke Griffin. He takes the _scan_ part out of his standard _please scan or fax the attached form_ emails. He actually saves a new template just for her, so he'll stop having to delete it every time he sends her anything. He actively avoids telling her that scanning is an option.

He has a problem; he's aware.

It's just that Clarke sends very boring, professional emails. Which isn't a problem, of course; boring, professional emails are generally an upside, just like scans are. He tends to prefer them. But every time she sends him a fax, she sends it with an awesome hand-written cover sheet. Sometimes it's just a quick note-- _say hi to your phone, tell it I hope it doesn't feel too neglected_ \--but when she's bored or killing time or whatever else, she'll send him elaborate fake advertisements for products and services she's made up.

And he's started sending her responses, too. He has a _fax penpal_. It's absurd, but in the best possible way He finds himself scribbling down complaints when he's on hold or in boring meetings and faxing them over, and Clarke will respond with sympathy or mockery, depending.

They've been doing it for about a month when Miller gets to one of the faxes before Bellamy does. He's in a meeting, and when he gets back, Miller's sitting in his chair, holding up a fax from Clarke. Bellamy can't quite read it, but it's obvious what it is, and why Miller is going to make fun of him.

But Bellamy doesn't have to admit that yet.

"How long have you been waiting for me?" he asks, mild. "Do you just sit in my chair when I'm not around? Do you smell my clothes? Are you _Single White Female_ -ing me? Just give me an idea of how creeped out I should be on a scale from one to ten."

"I was supposed to get a fax and I found a fake ad for viagra and a request for financial assistance for a patient. So--what?"

"What? It's a--" He falters, because he doesn't really have an explanation. He's lucky Pike hasn't noticed yet. It's everyone's fax machine, but it's on his desk, so he tends to be the one who collects and distributes everything. He doesn't need to make excuses. "It's an inside joke, I guess."

"You have inside jokes with providers now? Since when?"

"Since her."

"Clarke Griffin is a girl?"

"I think so. Judging from the handwriting." He shrugs. "I don't know what to tell you. We send each other weird faxes. It's a thing. It just kind of happened."

"Wait, you send each other weird faxes? Mutually? What do you send her?"

"I'm going to send me a note about how my coworker found her picture and had questions as soon as you're gone."

Miller considers. "I was going to ask if you've met her, but you're guessing gender from handwriting, which, dude, come on. It's the twenty-first century."

"Sorry gender-neutral pronouns are awkward in English. If I meet them and it turns out I was wrong, I'll switch. Are you going to give me my desk back or what?"

Miller shakes his head. "If you start faxing dick pics, I'm going to have an intervention."

"If I start faxing dick pics, I'm not going to tell you."

"Yeah, good call. Don't." He gives Clarke's viagra ad back. "Good luck with that whole thing."

"Thanks."

He reclaims his seat and grabs a piece of scrap paper, contemplating it. He assumes Clarke knows his name, but she probably has no more idea about his demographic information than he has about hers. She might assume he's a guy, but that's about it.

It's probably about time to get to know her.

_I was at a meeting when that fax came in and he got to it before I did, and he had a lot of questions, so thanks for that. At least it wasn't my boss. He also called me out for assuming you were a woman based on your handwriting, which I guess is kind of shitty. So, for the record, Bellamy Blake, 34, Taurus, male. If I had any artistic talent, I'd draw you something cool, but I figured I should leave that for you. I'm putting up some of the SFW stuff in my office, though._

He reads it over a few times, adds a waving stick figure, and puts on a cover sheet before he sends it. There are a few different faxes that ring through as Orthopedics, and he's never been sure if this one is just Clarke's or what, but he figures he might as well play it safe. Doctors might get in trouble for this, even if he's pretty sure his boss would think it was funny.

Clarke's never particularly punctual with responses, which makes sense; she's an actual healthcare provider. Bellamy's got a desk job, and he spends most of his time reviewing patient accounts, sending doctors strongly worded emails about how their patient accounts are going to be sent to the collection agency if they don't do something, and advising patients about how to get the best coverage they can. It makes him feel a little dirty sometimes, but the American healthcare system is broken. His job is, at least, to try to help people navigate that, and to make sure doctors are actually paying attention to all these things.

It's the best he can do aside from advocating for actually decent healthcare practices, and he does that too. So he can mostly sleep at night.

It just means that while he's busy all the time, he's rarely the kind of busy that involves his not being at his desk. Which means that he spends the afternoon actually _hoping_ the fax machine is going to ring, instead of dreading it like he usually does, and checking every few minutes to see if it's on and working properly.

It's novel, but it's not exactly fun.

He gets another fax first, this one about lapsed insurance coverage, and that at least gives him something to do while he waits for Clarke to get back to him. He can't help worrying he overstepped or something, that Clarke is somehow opposed to the level of friendship where--what? There's nothing actually _wrong_ with being friendly. She's the one sending him fake viagra ads. If anyone made this weird, it's Clarke.

Really.

Her response comes at 4:10, just when his brain is turning into a fine mush. It's like she knows he needs it.

And it's a pretty awesome response, as a bonus. It's got _SELF PORTRAIT_ written at the top, and then it's something like one of those caricatures people get done at street fairs, this little cartoon character with a giant head and a tiny body. This one has a stethoscope around its neck, a clipboard in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. It's hard to tell anything about Clarke's actual appearance from the drawing, except that she is indeed a woman and she's cute, in cartoon form. And she's a medical professional who likes wine, although that's basically every medical professional he's ever met, so that doesn't help much.

It's still really cute. He's halfway to pinning it onto his wall before he realizes that having a picture of a non-Octavia girl on display in his office will definitely invite more questions than just having random artwork up. His wall already has some random things , one or two pieces of fax art won't make a huge difference.

The fax starts up again, and there's another message from Clarke.

_That's a Griffin original. Save it, it might be worth something._

He considers for a second, takes a shitty picture of himself frowning, and then emails it to himself, prints it off, and writes, _The original is worth something. Mine is a literal facsimile. But thanks anyway._

She doesn't send a picture in response, for which he can't blame her, because it's definitely a huge waste of ink. But she draws the same cartoon character, grinning like she's taking a selfie, sketchier than last time, clearly drawn more quickly. _You've discovered some primitive, shittier snapchat. Congratulations. Also I can't tell if you have a ton of freckles or it's just the shitty quality of the fax._

He gets the picture back, compares it to what's on his screen versus what's on the printout, carefully circling every freckle. It's not a good use of his time, obviously, but it's 4:30 and he's been really productive today. Pike already left, so he's not the only one slacking.

_Hope this helps_ , he writes.

There's another little cartoon Clarke, giving him a thumb's up. _Much clearer. Thanks, Bellamy._

He makes himself do ten minutes of work before he scrawls another note, this one in the corner of a spam message he got about cruises. _I like your primitive bitmoji. Sorry I don't have one of my own. Please accept this totally legitimate cruise offer instead_.

Before he takes off for the day, he gets one final message, a simple: _Your stick figure was cute too. Have a good night, Bellamy_. 

He saves them all in a new folder in his desk, and he's grinning all the way home.

*

"Miller says you've got a girlfriend," Octavia tells him, two weeks later.

"Miller didn't say that."

"Okay, not _exactly_ that."

"You can't quote Miller in arguments if he didn't actually say whatever you're claiming he did. At least admit that you're paraphrasing."

"He said you're flirting with some doctor over fax. Honestly, saying you had a girlfriend was giving you more credit than Miller gave you. I was being nice."

"Very generous, thanks."

"Are you seriously fax flirting? That's not even old school. I don't think people have ever done that."

"I prefer retro."

She rolls her eyes. "None of this has actually been denial, which means it's all true."

"I have a friend," he says, which is mostly true. "A fax friend. Who's a girl."

"And you've never met her?"

"She's a doctor. I've met like five of the doctors and it's awkward every time. They always just say, oh you're the one who sends all those emails, and then the conversation's over."

"Yeah, but I assume you guys have a rich fax history to talk about now."

It's not an unreasonable assumption. Bellamy's drawer of Clarke faxes isn't growing as quickly as it used to, but that's just because she called him out on using a form email two days after he sent his picture, so he's started casually emailing her, and that's most of their correspondence now. They email off and on all day when they have time, and Clarke still sends weird faxes with doodles on them, and he's started modifying all his spam mail and sending the edits along to her.

He's definitely trying to flirt, but it's an entirely new medium. He has no idea if it's working.

"I don't even know how I'd make that happen," he says.

"It's not _hard_. You guys work in the same hospital. If you ever went to the cafeteria, you might see her."

He has thought about that, sometimes. Clarke's in a different building than he is, but he might have seen her in passing. She'd probably recognize him, but he doesn't know if her self-portraits would be enough for him to place her. He thinks she's white and blonde, because there's no shading on her skin or hair, but that's the extent of his reasonable assumptions. There are a lot of blonde white girls in the world.

"Or you could just fax her and tell her you want to meet."

"I could," he agrees. "But I'm not."

"If you ever yell at people in a movie for not just fucking meeting up ever again, I'm going to remind you this happened."

"Yeah, that's legit." He rubs his face. "I don't actually know her."

"So get to know her."

"Yeah, that's what the faxes are for."

Octavia shakes her head. "Only you would pick up a girl with a _fax machine_. You're like some weird flirtation hipster."

"Everyone needs a thing, right? We email too," he adds, like it'll help, and Octavia rolls her eyes.

"I'm going to make fun of you about this _forever_."

"Yeah, I know."

*

He meets Clarke Griffin three weeks later, in what he would have called, up until meeting her, shitty circumstances.

In an attempt to bond more with Lincoln, Bellamy agreed to go rock climbing with him. And he does in theory _like_ rock climbing. He did it some back when he was in college, and it was always something he sort of idly thought he'd like to get back to. When Lincoln offered to take him, it seemed like a perfect way to get to know his sister's husband better.

And it would have been, if not for whatever the fuck happened to his back.

The day of, it feels like a minor inconvenience. The next day, it feels like he's dying when he wakes up, so he takes some painkillers and doesn't do anything strenuous, hoping the problem will fix itself.

On Monday, he's still in agony, but there's no reason to _not_ go to work. He works at a hospital, which means that his insurance is through the hospital and his PCP is there. Once he gets in, he drags himself to his desk and sets up an appointment to find out if this is another delightful side effect of being over thirty. Which would be profoundly unfair, because Lincoln is two years older than he is and does whatever the fuck he wants all the time.

Dr. Jackson has an early opening, at least, but although he thinks it's just a pulled muscle, he wants Bellamy to go get some x-rays done, _just in case_. Which he at least managed to get scheduled for that day on relatively short notice, so Bellamy can go home and relax after, but still. He would have preferred to just be done.

All Dr. Jackson said was to go up to the fifth floor and take a left, and even though Bellamy sees the sign, his pain-fogged brain doesn't really put together that he's going to orthopedics. He gives his name at the desk and waits for ten minutes, describes his issue to another nurse while she preps him for the x-rays, and then she brings him to a room where he can wait for the doctor to do a quick exam and tell him about the results.

The woman who shows up is about Octavia's height, probably in her early thirties, with wavy blonde hair braided back from her face. Her eyes are on her clipboard, scanning the x-rays as she walks. "Hi, Mister--Bellamy," she says, voice faltering.

"It's actually Blake," he offers. It's not the first time this has happened to him. "My last name. But you can call me Bellamy, yeah."

"No, I know, it's--" She huffs, laughing a little. "I'm Clarke Griffin."

He feels all the blood drain from his face. He's wearing a _hospital gown_. He didn't even get up to greet her because his stupid fucking back hurts so much, and here's Clarke Griffin, gorgeous and put together and smiling.

"Oh, fuck."

"Sorry, do you not trust me with your medical care?" she teases, and then sobers. "I do get if it's weird. I can get someone else, if you'd prefer--"

"I know pretty much all the doctors by email."

"But not by fax."

"No." His pride wars with his common sense for a second, but common sense wins. "Honestly, I don't want to wait for anyone else, so if you don't mind, that would be great."

"I don't mind. What happened?"

"Went rock-climbing with my brother in-law."

She laughs, and it's a nice laugh. He finds he likes the thought of making her laugh when he's not there, of his faxes making her smile when she gets them.

"Yeah, that would do it. The good news is, I don't think you did any permanent damage to your body. Eric's right, I think you just pulled a muscle. The pain sounds like it's worse than we'd expect, but there are all sorts of factors for that. I'd be inclined to give you a prescription for stronger painkillers and a note for your boss saying you shouldn't be in the office for a couple days."

"Really?"

"You should take it easy, yeah. Stay home, try not to move too much. If working from home is an option, you can do that, but commuting and sitting in an office chair all day is more strain than I'd recommend." She smiles. "Take the break, Bellamy. It's good for you. And you have an actual legitimate excuse. I'm a real doctor."

"Saying you're a real doctor just makes me feel like you're not a real doctor," he teases, and she grins.

"Yeah, I definitely conned my way into this. Just take the prescription and the note and get some rest, Bellamy."

"I don't think you've thought this through. If I'm not working, who's going to send you weird faxes?"

"I'll live." She goes over to the computer and prints off a few pages. "This is the prescription, this is the note for your boss, this is for the front desk." She hesitates and gives him a sticky note too. "This is my number. You can just send me weird texts. It's more eco-friendly anyway."

"Thanks, Clarke."

"You're welcome." She worries her lip, and it's kind of hypnotic. "It was nice to meet you."

"You too." He waves the papers. "I'll, uh--rest. And text. And get really high on painkillers."

"Solid plan. Feel better."

It's tempting to say something sappy like _I already do_ , but even with the pain, he knows better. "I'll keep you posted," he says, and means it.

*

Once they're texting each other regularly, Bellamy has a lot more trouble coming up with any kind of excuse for not asking Clarke out. He's only actually spoken to her for about five minutes, but it wasn't like he didn't like her before this. Now he's just sure he likes her in person too, and not just as a nebulous idea.

And, not to be shallow, but he really, really wants to make out with her. She's _gorgeous_. And he wants to make her laugh more. And, of course, she seems to like him too, so it should be a slam dunk. They talk every day, and she initiates conversation as much as he does. She still sends him weird faxes and emails.

He'd be an idiot to let this one go.

"Can't you just send her a fax?" Miller asks. "This is like the fucking easiest thing ever. All the work is done for you. The romance is built-in. You don't even have to come up with a cute callback to how you guys met. It's right there."

Bellamy rubs his face. "I know. But I want it to be good, okay?"

"The longer you wait, the longer you aren't dating this girl. And you should be jumping on that, because how many people are you ever going to meet who are into faxing as foreplay?"

"Ideally a lot," he says. "But I see your point. I'm working on it," he adds, because he is, obviously. "Just want to do it right."

"I'm not saying you should fax her a dick pic. I'm just saying that if you do, it was my idea first."

"I'll give you a shout-out in my wedding vows," he promises. "Now leave me alone."

Just because he's alone doesn't mean he stops thinking about it, of course. It's Friday and there's a long weekend coming up; he's already established that Clarke does get the day off because her clinic is closed, and that she doesn't really have plans aside from doing laundry and day-drinking. It would be very easy for plans to him to fit into that schedule. He'd honestly be thrilled if he could hang around and day drink with her.

He just needs to ask.

His fax machine spits out a message at noon, one of Clarke's drawings of herself, asleep on her desk, with the caption, _I get to leave at two and these two hours WILL NOT END_ , and inspiration miraculously strikes.

Bellamy is by no stretch of the imagination, an artist. With time and effort, he can copy something so that it is recognizably the thing he wanted it to be, if not a particularly good representation of said thing. 

In this case, though, he thinks it's the thought that counts. Clarke's going to get it. The drawing is crude and kind of hideous and looks like the kind of thing a fairly mediocre middle-school kid in a mandatory art class would produce, but it's pretty clearly him (he has curly hair and freckles) and pretty clearly Clarke (wavy hair, bottle of wine in one hand), and they're walking and holding hands. 

As romance goes, it's kind of shitty, but he either Clarke likes him and will think it's sweet, or she's not interested and the best art in the world wouldn't make a difference.

_I'm done at two too. Can I walk you home?_

He sends the message, the confirmation comes through, and then it's just the twisted up nausea of waiting to get through. At least it makes his work seem like a welcome distraction; that's something to be thankful for.

After about ten minutes, his phone rings, Clarke's name showing on the display for the first time ever. She _never_ calls. He's not sure if it's a good sign or not.

"Hi," he says, wary.

"I drive to work," she says, but he can hear her smiling. "Do you want a ride home instead?"

"Can I get a ride to your place? Is that on the table?"

There's her laugh again, just as good as he remembered it. "Even better. See you at two?"

"It's a date."

*

Since it was a long weekend, he has a lot to do on Tuesday. It's not like he _doesn't_ talk to Clarke, of course--they spent basically the entire three days hanging out, and she is now officially his girlfriend, so of course they're still texting and stuff--but it's not really as much of a priority to fax her weird shit when he knows that he's going to see her tonight.

So, of course, at three he gets a fax with a frowning cartoon Clarke that just says, _I knew you'd stop faxing me weird things as soon as I put out._

He takes a picture of himself rolling his eyes, prints it off, and adds, _I'm building up to the faxed dick pic, but I need to have my resume ready in case I get fired. These things take time, Clarke._

This is maybe one advantage of fax over email. If he did this on email, the paper trail would be way more obvious. HR will have a lot more trouble figuring out out he's sending inappropriate dick-pic messages on the fax machine.

_You can skip it. The faxes don't really compare to the real thing. This also applies to your face, so stop wasting hospital ink and get back to work, slacker._

_You started it_ , he writes back, with another shitty cartoon of himself. She _likes_ his cartoons. She thinks they're cute. _If you just knew how to find a fax number, I'd be so much more productive._

Most of her next fax is just a giant _¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_ , with _#sorrynotsorry_ at the bottom. They really are leaning into the retro tech stuff, but he can't say he's upset about it. It's working for them, after all.

He wouldn't change a thing.


End file.
